SpaceX Ready To Launch In January, 4 Months After Explosion

The SpaceX is now planning for its return to flight on January 8, 2017, after finishing the investigation with regards to the September launch pad explosion that almost destroyed the Falcon 9 rocket as well as the commercial communications satellite.

The Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp. said that they would resume the rocket launch of the date mentioned above using the revised operational practices which were developed in response to the accident that happened last fall.

According to CBC News, the Hawthorne space company is planning to launch ten satellites on one Falcon 9 rocket for Iridium Communications Inc. from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The said satellite will be a part of the Iridium's new satellite constellation which will provide mobile communications capabilities on land, ships, and airplanes.

The tentative blastoff on the said date from the California's Vandenberg Air Force Base is still subject to the results of the investigations this week. However, if the results of the investigations are good, Iridium Communications Inc., will launch its first ten next-generation communication satellites on the next Sunday morning.

"Clearly, they're extra cautious. SpaceX usually pushes ahead a lot faster, so it seems like they're not rushing ahead at this point, which is a good thing," Marco Caceres, senior space analyst for the Teal Group said.

According to Chicago Tribune, the final update about the status of the satellite was released on Monday. SpaceX said that it poured through 3,000 channels of video and telemetry data which spanned with just 93 milliseconds from the first sign of trouble to the explosion.

However, updates were released and were also posted on the company's website, suggesting that SpaceX is focusing on the general concept to speed up the process for launch. There are changes in the expected designs which will be implemented before the first Falcon 9 is slated to take off with astronauts on 2018.